CLIRhttps://www.clir.org
Tue, 14 Aug 2018 15:11:57 +0000en-UShourly1122234237Email Archives Comes of Agehttps://www.clir.org/2018/08/email-archives-comes-of-age/
Tue, 14 Aug 2018 13:45:39 +0000https://clir.wordpress.clir.org/?p=19242Christopher Prom and Kate Murray For many of us, email comprises the journal of our personal and professional daily life. We use it to exchange quick notes and detailed information; we make plans for business meetings or casual lunches; we catch up with family, friends, and colleagues; we give opinions, make decisions, and discuss the news of the day. Even with the rise of other social media platforms and instant messaging applications, email remains in widespread use today with a solid future ahead. But perhaps more important for archives and libraries, email has a long history of adoption, and many collecting institutions receive material long after its creation date. Just like the bundles of letters in an attic, petabytes of email accounts are cueing up in professional and personal accounts. But will they ever pass through the virtual doors of archives around the world? As the Mellon Foundation and the Digital Preservation Coalition-sponsored Task Force on Technical Approaches for Email Archives discovered over the course of its work, email is fundamentally a different beast than traditional paper-based personal papers and letters. The problems of email archiving arise from how contents are organized, or disorganized, before they are captured by archivists. In a nutshell, the complexity of email archives and the scope of attachment formats—combined with the sheer scale and volume of email collections, and the paucity of robust tool sets—make email archiving a potentially daunting task. By assessing current efforts to preserve email, articulating a conceptual and technical framework, and constructing a community agenda for future work, the task force members developed a tiered set of recommendations focused on two complementary areas: (1) community development and advocacy, and (2) tool support, testing, and development. In The Future of Email Archives report released by CLIR this week, the task force lists suggested activities for each area. These include both low-barrier actions, which the community can start addressing immediately, and projects that require more planning and funding. One of the most challenging issues from an archival perspective stems from email’s ubiquity: because it is so integrated with our daily life, email collections are ripe with personal, sensitive, and private information. Archivists and curators need powerful and flexible open-source tools to automatically identify, remove, redact, and restrict personally identifiable information (PII) or otherwise sensitive information—a process commonly known as sensitivity review. The onus on the email archiving community is to build trust for both the donor and researcher communities through strong policies and actions with respect to accessioning, appraisal, and preservation, supported by scalable and cost-effective technologies that enable sensitivity review, redaction, and access. While search and discover functions exist for structured classes of PII such as Social Security numbers and phone numbers, this functionality does not extend to less-structured information such as education or health records. Also absent is reliable search functionality for less defined “fuzzy” searches that don’t rely on specific terms. Without these capabilities, donors are reluctant to include email collections in potential acquisitions, and historians and other researchers struggle to interact with the data in a meaningful way, if they can even get access to the data. Cost effectiveness is the key concept here. Email archiving functionality already exists but it’s most active in proprietary software tools typically used by the legal community for eDiscovery and declassification services. It is out of reach for many on the archiving side. The challenge is two-pronged: (1) improve the tools, and (2) make them widely available through open source development and sustained management efforts. On the “improve the tools” side, natural language processing (NLP) applications and machine-learning software could be enhanced to improve the ability of collections managers to identify and extract more nuanced entities from the archive. Current NLP workflows rely on named entity recognition to identify just certain data types, such as persons, corporations, and places, even offering some comparisons against specific categories in Wikipedia. On the “more widely available” side, the goal is to open both the software code and access to the improved toolsets outside of closed or proprietary systems. Focusing on open source development would allow a transparent and adaptable development framework. But open source does not mean unstructured and unsupported. All is not doom and gloom. The report demonstrates that all archives—from the smallest-staffed unit allied with a local history society to the largest academic or government archives—can take steps to preserve email. The key lies in defining a target storage format, then leveraging current tools and services to move email from its current storage locations into a repository infrastructure. Since mail transport and exchange operate via a standardized, well-known set of protocols, archivists can chain together tools to capture and process collections. One of the most valuable sections of the report is the description of tools and workflows. These build on each other from simple to complex. Preserving the bit stream of messages in a format like PST—the proprietary but open format that Outlook uses to export messages—is a good first step. The following figure illustrates this process at work. Processing email using this or a similar method (perhaps converting to a format like MBOX and saving attachments in their original binary formats) leaves open the possibility of applying more complex approaches later. The report provides many ideas and workflows to do just that, whether the repository’s goal is migration, emulation, or a combination of both. Today, email is present in many of the most prominent news stories and is frequently cited in the latest exposés. But the first draft of history does not need to be the last word. And this brings us to perhaps the core takeaway from the task force’s work: archives and libraries are now primed for success in preserving email archives. Tools are maturing, but they just need a little boost. With some additional support, work, and community building, we can and will move toward greater interoperability and ease of use for all. Christopher Prom is assistant university archivist and Andrew S. G. Turyn Professor at the University of Read More

For many of us, email comprises the journal of our personal and professional daily life. We use it to exchange quick notes and detailed information; we make plans for business meetings or casual lunches; we catch up with family, friends, and colleagues; we give opinions, make decisions, and discuss the news of the day. Even with the rise of other social media platforms and instant messaging applications, email remains in widespread use today with a solid future ahead. But perhaps more important for archives and libraries, email has a long history of adoption, and many collecting institutions receive material long after its creation date. Just like the bundles of letters in an attic, petabytes of email accounts are cueing up in professional and personal accounts. But will they ever pass through the virtual doors of archives around the world?

As the Mellon Foundation and the Digital Preservation Coalition-sponsored Task Force on Technical Approaches for Email Archives discovered over the course of its work, email is fundamentally a different beast than traditional paper-based personal papers and letters. The problems of email archiving arise from how contents are organized, or disorganized, before they are captured by archivists. In a nutshell, the complexity of email archives and the scope of attachment formats—combined with the sheer scale and volume of email collections, and the paucity of robust tool sets—make email archiving a potentially daunting task.

By assessing current efforts to preserve email, articulating a conceptual and technical framework, and constructing a community agenda for future work, the task force members developed a tiered set of recommendations focused on two complementary areas: (1) community development and advocacy, and (2) tool support, testing, and development. In The Future of Email Archives report released by CLIR this week, the task force lists suggested activities for each area. These include both low-barrier actions, which the community can start addressing immediately, and projects that require more planning and funding.

One of the most challenging issues from an archival perspective stems from email’s ubiquity: because it is so integrated with our daily life, email collections are ripe with personal, sensitive, and private information. Archivists and curators need powerful and flexible open-source tools to automatically identify, remove, redact, and restrict personally identifiable information (PII) or otherwise sensitive information—a process commonly known as sensitivity review.

The onus on the email archiving community is to build trust for both the donor and researcher communities through strong policies and actions with respect to accessioning, appraisal, and preservation, supported by scalable and cost-effective technologies that enable sensitivity review, redaction, and access. While search and discover functions exist for structured classes of PII such as Social Security numbers and phone numbers, this functionality does not extend to less-structured information such as education or health records. Also absent is reliable search functionality for less defined “fuzzy” searches that don’t rely on specific terms. Without these capabilities, donors are reluctant to include email collections in potential acquisitions, and historians and other researchers struggle to interact with the data in a meaningful way, if they can even get access to the data.

Cost effectiveness is the key concept here. Email archiving functionality already exists but it’s most active in proprietary software tools typically used by the legal community for eDiscovery and declassification services. It is out of reach for many on the archiving side. The challenge is two-pronged: (1) improve the tools, and (2) make them widely available through open source development and sustained management efforts.

On the “improve the tools” side, natural language processing (NLP) applications and machine-learning software could be enhanced to improve the ability of collections managers to identify and extract more nuanced entities from the archive. Current NLP workflows rely on named entity recognition to identify just certain data types, such as persons, corporations, and places, even offering some comparisons against specific categories in Wikipedia.

On the “more widely available” side, the goal is to open both the software code and access to the improved toolsets outside of closed or proprietary systems. Focusing on open source development would allow a transparent and adaptable development framework. But open source does not mean unstructured and unsupported.

All is not doom and gloom. The report demonstrates that all archives—from the smallest-staffed unit allied with a local history society to the largest academic or government archives—can take steps to preserve email. The key lies in defining a target storage format, then leveraging current tools and services to move email from its current storage locations into a repository infrastructure. Since mail transport and exchange operate via a standardized, well-known set of protocols, archivists can chain together tools to capture and process collections.

One of the most valuable sections of the report is the description of tools and workflows. These build on each other from simple to complex. Preserving the bit stream of messages in a format like PST—the proprietary but open format that Outlook uses to export messages—is a good first step. The following figure illustrates this process at work.

Processing email using this or a similar method (perhaps converting to a format like MBOX and saving attachments in their original binary formats) leaves open the possibility of applying more complex approaches later. The report provides many ideas and workflows to do just that, whether the repository’s goal is migration, emulation, or a combination of both.

Today, email is present in many of the most prominent news stories and is frequently cited in the latest exposés. But the first draft of history does not need to be the last word. And this brings us to perhaps the core takeaway from the task force’s work: archives and libraries are now primed for success in preserving email archives. Tools are maturing, but they just need a little boost. With some additional support, work, and community building, we can and will move toward greater interoperability and ease of use for all.

Christopher Prom is assistant university archivist and Andrew S. G. Turyn Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Kate Murray is Digital Projects Coordinator at the Library of Congress.

]]>19242New CLIR Report Examines Complexity and Challenges of Preserving Emailhttps://www.clir.org/2018/08/new-clir-report-examines-complexity-and-challenges-of-preserving-email/
Mon, 13 Aug 2018 15:52:49 +0000https://clir.wordpress.clir.org/?p=19228Task Force identifies short- and long-term actions for advocacy and technology development Contact: Kathlin Smith 202-939-4754 Washington, DC, August 13, 2018—Email is an increasingly important part of the historical record, yet it is particularly difficult to preserve, putting future access to this vast resource at risk. A new report from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) looks at what makes email archiving so complex and describes emerging strategies to meet the challenge. The Future of Email Archives presents the findings of a yearlong investigation of the Task Force on Technical Approaches for Email Archives, sponsored by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Digital Preservation Coalition. The 19-member task force, comprising representatives from higher education, government, and industry, was co-chaired by Christopher Prom, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Kate Murray, of the Library of Congress. More than 2.6 billion people currently use email; on an average day 215 billion messages are sent and received for personal and business communication. Email documents personal and public stories, yet relatively few archives have policies in place for systematically capturing, preserving, and providing access to email. Complexity is part of the problem. “Email is not one thing, but a complicated interaction of the technical subsystems for composition, transport, viewing and storage,” notes the report. “Archives can and should do everything they can to capture and preserve email, if we want to assemble a historical record that future generations can interrogate and use,” said Prom. Some archives have made progress in creating preservation workflows, and the report includes examples from five institutions. Most archives, however, are being left behind. “Just as the protocols that define the email environment are heavily standardized to facilitate interoperability across the diverse landscape of email, so too must the tools to preserve email be able to interact with one another across the lifecycle,” write the authors. “Some protocols and tools already exist but their functionality is not yet mature and there is much work ahead to implement scalable, community-led solutions,” adds Murray. Addressing the challenges will require commitment and engagement from a wide variety of stakeholders. The task force proposes a series of short- and long-term actions for community development and advocacy, as well as for tool support, testing, and development. The report is intended for the archival community, digital preservation professionals, technologists and software developers, commercial vendors, historians and scholars, institutional administrators, and funding agencies and foundations. Print and online versions are available via https://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub175. CLIR is an independent, nonprofit organization that forges strategies to enhance research, teaching, and learning environments in collaboration with libraries, cultural institutions, and communities of higher learning. It aims to promote forward-looking collaborative solutions that transcend disciplinary, institutional, professional, and geographic boundaries in support of the public good.

Washington, DC, August 13, 2018—Email is an increasingly important part of the historical record, yet it is particularly difficult to preserve, putting future access to this vast resource at risk. A new report from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) looks at what makes email archiving so complex and describes emerging strategies to meet the challenge.

The Future of Email Archives presents the findings of a yearlong investigation of the Task Force on Technical Approaches for Email Archives, sponsored by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Digital Preservation Coalition. The 19-member task force, comprising representatives from higher education, government, and industry, was co-chaired by Christopher Prom, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Kate Murray, of the Library of Congress.

More than 2.6 billion people currently use email; on an average day 215 billion messages are sent and received for personal and business communication. Email documents personal and public stories, yet relatively few archives have policies in place for systematically capturing, preserving, and providing access to email. Complexity is part of the problem. “Email is not one thing, but a complicated interaction of the technical subsystems for composition, transport, viewing and storage,” notes the report.

“Archives can and should do everything they can to capture and preserve email, if we want to assemble a historical record that future generations can interrogate and use,” said Prom.

Some archives have made progress in creating preservation workflows, and the report includes examples from five institutions. Most archives, however, are being left behind. “Just as the protocols that define the email environment are heavily standardized to facilitate interoperability across the diverse landscape of email, so too must the tools to preserve email be able to interact with one another across the lifecycle,” write the authors.

“Some protocols and tools already exist but their functionality is not yet mature and there is much work ahead to implement scalable, community-led solutions,” adds Murray.

Addressing the challenges will require commitment and engagement from a wide variety of stakeholders. The task force proposes a series of short- and long-term actions for community development and advocacy, as well as for tool support, testing, and development.

The report is intended for the archival community, digital preservation professionals, technologists and software developers, commercial vendors, historians and scholars, institutional administrators, and funding agencies and foundations. Print and online versions are available via https://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub175.

CLIR is an independent, nonprofit organization that forges strategies to enhance research, teaching, and learning environments in collaboration with libraries, cultural institutions, and communities of higher learning. It aims to promote forward-looking collaborative solutions that transcend disciplinary, institutional, professional, and geographic boundaries in support of the public good.

]]>19228CLIR Issues 123https://www.clir.org/2018/06/clir-issues-123/
Thu, 28 Jun 2018 16:58:12 +0000https://clir.wordpress.clir.org/?p=19063Number 123 May/June 2018 ISSN 1944-7639 (online version) Contents CLIR Names 2018 Postdoctoral Fellows Sustaining Public Media Archives: A Way Forward Register Now for 2018 DLF Forum and Affiliated Events Forthcoming in July: The Future of Email Archives Thank You, Sponsors and Members! Staff Promotions Reminder: Recordings at Risk Application Deadline June 29 CLIR Issues is produced in electronic format only. To receive the newsletter, please sign up at http://www.clir.org/pubs/issues/signup. Content is not copyrighted and can be freely distributed. Follow us on Twitter @CLIRNews, @CLIRHC, @CLIRDLF Like us on Facebook @CLIRNews CLIR Names 2018 Postdoctoral Fellows CLIR welcomes 21 postdoctoral fellows as we enter the fifteenth year of the Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. Fellows will work on sustainable approaches to software and research data curation in the sciences and social sciences supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; data curation for Latin American and Caribbean Studies funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and in digital humanities, digital scholarship, and geospatial data curation supported by individual host institutions. For the first time, the program is supporting four CLIR/Digital Library Federation (DLF) Postdoctoral Fellows in Data Curation for Energy Economics, with a grant from Sloan’s Energy and Environment Program. Energy fellows have joint appointments between energy research centers and libraries at four major research universities. Fellowships are awarded to scholars who received a PhD degree within the last five years in the humanities, social sciences, or sciences. The program cultivates new leaders by giving highly skilled and articulate scholars broad exposure to issues facing academic libraries and cultural heritage institutions, practical opportunities to learn, and connections within the profession and beyond. Twelve fellows from the 2017 cohort will spend a second year at their host institutions. The new fellows will begin their program at an intensive seminar at Bryn Mawr College from July 29 to August 4, 2018. The seminar introduces fellows to issues facing twenty-first-century libraries, including data and software curation, and provides an opportunity for them to meet others in their cohort to share experiences and information. Fellows’ supervisors also attend the seminar for a day to discuss expectations and strategies for maximizing the effectiveness of the fellowships. Fellowship information is available at https://www.clir.org/fellowships/postdoc. Emily Beagle PhD: Mechanical Engineering, University of Wyoming Host: University of Texas at Austin Diana Carolina Sierra Becerra PhD: History and Women’s Studies, University of Michigan Host: Smith College Alexander Brey PhD: History of Art, Bryn Mawr Host: McGill University Heidi Dodson PhD: History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Host: University at Buffalo Seth Erickson PhD: Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles Host: Pennsylvania State University Jennifer Garcon PhD: History, University of Miami Host: University of Pennsylvania Zenobie S. Garrett PhD: Anthropology, New York University Host: University of Oklahoma Daniel Genkins PhD: History, Vanderbilt University Host: Brown University Jennifer Isasi PhD: Hispanic Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Host: University of Texas at Austin Andrew Meade McGee PhD: History, University of Virginia Host: Carnegie Mellon University Nicté Fuller Medina PhD: Linguistics, University of Ottawa Host: University of California, Los Angeles Margie Montañez PhD: American Studies, University of New Mexico Host: University of New Mexico Smiti Nathan PhD: Anthropology with focus on Archaeology, New York University Host: Johns Hopkins University Hyeongyul Roh PhD: Economics, North Carolina State University Host: Duke University Jonathan Scott PhD: Economics, Texas A&M University Host: University of California, Berkeley Justin D. Shanks PhD: Science and Technology Studies, Virginia Tech Host: Montana State University Hadassah St. Hubert PhD: History, University of Miami Host: Florida International University Rachel Starry PhD: Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology, Bryn Mawr College Host: University at Buffalo Ana Trisovic PhD: Computer Science, University of Cambridge Host: University of Chicago Wendy Hoi Yan Wong PhD: Music, Chinese University of Hong Kong Host: Chinese University of Hong Kong Qian Zhang PhD: Physical Oceanography with minor in Electronic and Computer Engineering, Louisiana State University Host: University of Waterloo Sustaining Public Media Archives: A Way Forward CLIR and WGBH this week released a summary of discussions focused on the risks facing publicly supported radio and television broadcasts, and what is needed to sustain public media archives. The discussions, held in November 2017, involved experts and stakeholders who met to articulate the arguments for archiving and preserving the public media legacy, assess the challenges, and explore ways to address those challenges. The deterioration of media carriers and the increasing obsolescence of older recording technologies pose an imminent threat to the survival of much of the public’s investments in news, culture, science, and educational programming. National coordination is needed to overcome three “grand challenges” to preserving and sustaining access to public media: reformatting legacy content, implementing long-term preservation strategies for both legacy and born-digital content, and surmounting barriers to access. “Despite these daunting challenges, now is an ideal time to act to preserve and sustain a public media archive,” notes the summary, which identifies a series of opportunities associated with sustaining such an archive. The summary offers recommendations for action that include engaging communicators to help raise awareness of the problem, identifying at-risk content and a set of tiered options for preserving it, identifying ways to reduce barriers to access so material can be made available to the public sooner, and building new partnerships focused on the grand challenges facing public media archiving. Sustaining Public Media Archives: Summary of Sustainability Discussion Hosted by CLIR and WGBH, is available at https://www.clir.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2016/09/Sustaining-Public-Media-Archives.pdf. Register Now for 2018 DLF Forum and Affiliated Events Registration is now open for the 2018 DLF Forum and Digital Preservation 2018, taking place October 15-18 just outside of Las Vegas. Register today and benefit from early bird rates! Stay tuned for the Forum schedule, which will be posted in mid-July and accessible via https://forum2018.diglib.org/schedule/. Forthcoming in July: The Future of Email Archives The Future of Email Archives, written by the Task Force on Technical Approaches to Email Archives and forthcoming from CLIR in July, articulates a conceptual and technical framework in which current efforts to preserve email can operate not as competing solutions, but as elements of an interoperable toolkit. The report identifies Read More

CLIR Names 2018 Postdoctoral Fellows

CLIR welcomes 21 postdoctoral fellows as we enter the fifteenth year of the Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. Fellows will work on sustainable approaches to software and research data curation in the sciences and social sciences supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; data curation for Latin American and Caribbean Studies funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and in digital humanities, digital scholarship, and geospatial data curation supported by individual host institutions.

For the first time, the program is supporting four CLIR/Digital Library Federation (DLF) Postdoctoral Fellows in Data Curation for Energy Economics, with a grant from Sloan’s Energy and Environment Program. Energy fellows have joint appointments between energy research centers and libraries at four major research universities.

Fellowships are awarded to scholars who received a PhD degree within the last five years in the humanities, social sciences, or sciences. The program cultivates new leaders by giving highly skilled and articulate scholars broad exposure to issues facing academic libraries and cultural heritage institutions, practical opportunities to learn, and connections within the profession and beyond. Twelve fellows from the 2017 cohort will spend a second year at their host institutions.

The new fellows will begin their program at an intensive seminar at Bryn Mawr College from July 29 to August 4, 2018. The seminar introduces fellows to issues facing twenty-first-century libraries, including data and software curation, and provides an opportunity for them to meet others in their cohort to share experiences and information. Fellows’ supervisors also attend the seminar for a day to discuss expectations and strategies for maximizing the effectiveness of the fellowships.

Qian ZhangPhD: Physical Oceanography with minor in Electronic and Computer Engineering, Louisiana State University
Host: University of Waterloo

Sustaining Public Media Archives: A Way Forward

CLIR and WGBH this week released a summary of discussions focused on the risks facing publicly supported radio and television broadcasts, and what is needed to sustain public media archives. The discussions, held in November 2017, involved experts and stakeholders who met to articulate the arguments for archiving and preserving the public media legacy, assess the challenges, and explore ways to address those challenges.

The deterioration of media carriers and the increasing obsolescence of older recording technologies pose an imminent threat to the survival of much of the public’s investments in news, culture, science, and educational programming. National coordination is needed to overcome three “grand challenges” to preserving and sustaining access to public media: reformatting legacy content, implementing long-term preservation strategies for both legacy and born-digital content, and surmounting barriers to access.

“Despite these daunting challenges, now is an ideal time to act to preserve and sustain a public media archive,” notes the summary, which identifies a series of opportunities associated with sustaining such an archive.

The summary offers recommendations for action that include engaging communicators to help raise awareness of the problem, identifying at-risk content and a set of tiered options for preserving it, identifying ways to reduce barriers to access so material can be made available to the public sooner, and building new partnerships focused on the grand challenges facing public media archiving.

Forthcoming in July: The Future of Email Archives

The Future of Email Archives, written by the Task Force on Technical Approaches to Email Archives and forthcoming from CLIR in July, articulates a conceptual and technical framework in which current efforts to preserve email can operate not as competing solutions, but as elements of an interoperable toolkit. The report identifies missing elements and areas for additional community growth.

Thank You, Sponsors and Members!

As CLIR’s sponsorship year draws to a close, we thank our sponsors and members for their continued support and acknowledge the following new sponsors and members who joined in 2017-2018:

Colorado State University (DLF member)
Concordia University (DLF member)
George Mason University (CLIR sponsor)
Georgia Public Library Service (DLF member)
ITHAKA (DLF member)
Lyon College (CLIR sponsor and DLF member)
Michigan State University (DLF member)
Oklahoma State University (CLIR sponsor)
Qatar National Library (CLIR sponsor and DLF member)
Rockefeller Archive Center (DLF member)
San Diego State University (CLIR sponsor)
Texas Christian University (CLIR sponsor)
The College of Wooster Libraries (DLF member)
Trinity University (DLF member)
University at Buffalo (SUNY) (CLIR sponsor and DLF member)
University of Connecticut (DLF member)
University of Idaho (DLF member)
University of Nevada, Las Vegas (DLF member)

Through annual dues, CLIR sponsors help support research, publications and related resources, partnerships, and other activities that benefit libraries, cultural institutions, and communities of higher learning. DLF members contribute to community efforts through a variety of research and development, information sharing, and catalytic initiatives. Learn more about sponsorship and membership at https://www.clir.org/about/become-a-sponsor-or-member/.

Amy Lucko has been promoted to deputy to the president. In this new role, she will foster communication among senior leadership and program staff, assist the president in identifying new trends in higher education and opportunities for CLIR’s investment, and maintain the organizational archive. She will continue to work on several of CLIR’s major programs, including the Leading Change Institute, the Digitizing Hidden Collections and Recordings at Risk grant programs, and the CLIR Mellon Fellowships for Dissertation Research in Original Sources.

Reminder: Recordings at Risk Application Deadline June 29

There is still time to submit an application to CLIR’s Recordings at Risk grant program. Administered with generous funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Recordings at Risk supports the preservation of rare and unique audio and audiovisual content of high scholarly value through digital reformatting. Applications are due by midnight ET on June 29; recipients will be announced September 28, 2018.

]]>19063International Council on Interdependence for Higher Education: A Modest Proposalhttps://www.clir.org/2018/06/international-council-on-interdependence-for-higher-education-a-modest-proposal/
Wed, 06 Jun 2018 14:18:24 +0000https://clir.wordpress.clir.org/?p=18901Our academic knowledge environment today is disorganized and exorbitantly expensive, segmented by an array of local, redundant investments. But there now exists an opportunity to construct a new, robust, interoperable environment: never before have so many well-conceived, large-scale digital projects begun to flourish, with each of these projects representing a fundamental element of academic knowledge organization. Framing these projects as an aggregated system could advance the commonwealth of academic knowledge, while mitigating many of the constraints—debilitating costs, franchise walls, resource isolation, and idiosyncratic maintenance—we struggle with today. Is the academy ready to take on this grand, global challenge? Panelists Charles Henry (President, CLIR), Steve Masters (Group Chief Technology Officer, Jisc), and Elliott Shore (Special Advisor to the Board, Association of Research Libraries) take up this question at the Internet2 2018 Global Summit in San Diego, May 8, and propose the creation of an International Council on Interdependence for Higher Education. Watch the video at: https://meetings.internet2.edu/2018-global-summit/detail/10004986/.

]]>Our academic knowledge environment today is disorganized and exorbitantly expensive, segmented by an array of local, redundant investments. But there now exists an opportunity to construct a new, robust, interoperable environment: never before have so many well-conceived, large-scale digital projects begun to flourish, with each of these projects representing a fundamental element of academic knowledge organization. Framing these projects as an aggregated system could advance the commonwealth of academic knowledge, while mitigating many of the constraints—debilitating costs, franchise walls, resource isolation, and idiosyncratic maintenance—we struggle with today. Is the academy ready to take on this grand, global challenge?

Panelists Charles Henry (President, CLIR), Steve Masters (Group Chief Technology Officer, Jisc), and Elliott Shore (Special Advisor to the Board, Association of Research Libraries) take up this question at the Internet2 2018 Global Summit in San Diego, May 8, and propose the creation of an International Council on Interdependence for Higher Education.

]]>18901“Dirty” Old Books: Building a Library of Stains with Multispectral Imaginghttps://www.clir.org/2018/06/dirty-old-books-building-a-library-of-stains-with-multispectral-imaging/
Mon, 04 Jun 2018 18:56:20 +0000https://clir.wordpress.clir.org/?p=18882Erin Connelly, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies (SIMS), University of Pennsylvania Libraries Alberto Campagnolo, Library of Congress Heather Wacha at the University of Wisconsin-Madison The Library of Stains Project, also known as Labeculae Vivae, Latin for “#stainsalive,” is using multispectral imaging to gather scientific data drawn from stains found on parchment, paper, and bindings in medieval and early modern books. Supported by a CLIR Postdoctoral Fellowship Microgrant, the project evolved from our interests as CLIR Postdoctoral Fellows in Data Curation: Erin’s research interests focus on medieval medicine; Alberto researches the book in general and how to model the book as an object in the digital world; and Heather’s research addresses how the materiality of manuscripts informs the historical context and content of a book. Each of our host institutions holds a significant manuscript and/or print collection, and each of us is working on digital projects that intersect with those collections. From the outset, there was a natural confluence between our diverse interests and backgrounds, which culminated in a year-long pilot study that aims to identify a new approach for accessing and studying information concerning the material makeup and historic uses of books. The Library of Stains project set out to provide: 1) a fixed dataset for characterized stains that are commonly found on manuscripts, 2) a sound methodology for the replication of gathering and analyzing the data, and 3) a clear explanation for how to implement and use the database as a means to further the study of medieval manuscripts and their conservation. In so doing, the Library of Stains hopes to engage both scholarly and public audiences, by providing additional tools for analyzing manuscripts vis à vis provenance, use, transmission, preservation, and materiality, and drawing attention to manuscripts traditionally pushed aside and dismissed due to their “dirty” or “stained” appearances. Exploring and studying the human experience through stains can draw a medieval person’s relationship to a manuscript closer to the present day and make us reconsider our own interactions with books today. After completing the imaging stage of the project, which took place in November and December 2017, we began to process and analyze the imaging data. Among the early results, one case study turned out to be particularly interesting: a sixteenth-century recipe book from the University of Pennsylvania Libraries collection (Ricettario, UPenn, MS Codex 115). The documentary evidence was enticing, stating that the book was “[b]adly stained in upper inner corner of each page; this stain has caused some text on each page to become faded or obliterated. Possible mildew damage on upper inner edge of parchment cover. Dealer’s description suggests this might be due to a chemical spilled on the manuscript by an alchemist.” After analyzing two samples of the manuscript’s text ink, an area of the parchment cover, an area of the paper folio (fol. 1r), two dark areas in the lower region of the stain, and an area in the upper region of the stain (see image), the preliminary results indicate that the dark areas in the lower region of the stain are similar to the text ink (due to damage to the text caused by the stain), while the upper sample does not correlate to the parchment, paper, or the text ink. This region of the stain warrants further investigation into possible chemical or acidic causative factors. This microgrant was for a duration of one year and is now at its conclusion. However, interested researchers will have the opportunity to pursue the questions raised in this exploratory study, or initiate new studies, as the data will be available in an open access repository. Overall, the imaging data amounted to 327.5 GB. The TIFF files, along with their metadata and the methodological procedure, will be shared in an open access repository hosted by SIMS at UPenn Libraries. Showcase visualizations of the data associated with what we refer to as “stain stories—fragmentary narratives of a manuscript’s history based on the spectral signatures of its inks and stains—will be available through Digital Mappa software developed by Martin Foys, Department of English, University of Madison-Wisconsin. The visualizations will link the raw data from the repository and show how it can be used, following the methodology, to investigate the nature of stains on manuscripts. The project benefited from the contributions of additional collaborators, including Fenella France, Chief Preservation Officer at the Library of Congress; Michael Toth of RB Toth and Associates; and William Christens-Barry of Equipoise Imaging, who provided the multispectral imaging equipment, as well as invaluable guidance during the imaging process and analysis at the universities of Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Wisconsin.

The Library of Stains Project, also known as Labeculae Vivae, Latin for “#stainsalive,” is using multispectral imaging to gather scientific data drawn from stains found on parchment, paper, and bindings in medieval and early modern books. Supported by a CLIR Postdoctoral Fellowship Microgrant, the project evolved from our interests as CLIR Postdoctoral Fellows in Data Curation: Erin’s research interests focus on medieval medicine; Alberto researches the book in general and how to model the book as an object in the digital world; and Heather’s research addresses how the materiality of manuscripts informs the historical context and content of a book. Each of our host institutions holds a significant manuscript and/or print collection, and each of us is working on digital projects that intersect with those collections. From the outset, there was a natural confluence between our diverse interests and backgrounds, which culminated in a year-long pilot study that aims to identify a new approach for accessing and studying information concerning the material makeup and historic uses of books.

The Library of Stains project set out to provide: 1) a fixed dataset for characterized stains that are commonly found on manuscripts, 2) a sound methodology for the replication of gathering and analyzing the data, and 3) a clear explanation for how to implement and use the database as a means to further the study of medieval manuscripts and their conservation. In so doing, the Library of Stains hopes to engage both scholarly and public audiences, by providing additional tools for analyzing manuscripts vis à vis provenance, use, transmission, preservation, and materiality, and drawing attention to manuscripts traditionally pushed aside and dismissed due to their “dirty” or “stained” appearances. Exploring and studying the human experience through stains can draw a medieval person’s relationship to a manuscript closer to the present day and make us reconsider our own interactions with books today.

After completing the imaging stage of the project, which took place in November and December 2017, we began to process and analyze the imaging data. Among the early results, one case study turned out to be particularly interesting: a sixteenth-century recipe book from the University of Pennsylvania Libraries collection (Ricettario, UPenn, MS Codex 115). The documentary evidence was enticing, stating that the book was “[b]adly stained in upper inner corner of each page; this stain has caused some text on each page to become faded or obliterated. Possible mildew damage on upper inner edge of parchment cover. Dealer’s description suggests this might be due to a chemical spilled on the manuscript by an alchemist.”

After analyzing two samples of the manuscript’s text ink, an area of the parchment cover, an area of the paper folio (fol. 1r), two dark areas in the lower region of the stain, and an area in the upper region of the stain (see image), the preliminary results indicate that the dark areas in the lower region of the stain are similar to the text ink (due to damage to the text caused by the stain), while the upper sample does not correlate to the parchment, paper, or the text ink. This region of the stain warrants further investigation into possible chemical or acidic causative factors. This microgrant was for a duration of one year and is now at its conclusion. However, interested researchers will have the opportunity to pursue the questions raised in this exploratory study, or initiate new studies, as the data will be available in an open access repository.

The authors used a Phase One high-pixel-count camera, provided by Michael B. Toth, to take a series of digital images illuminated by specific wavelengths of light from banks of LEDs. To create the spectral curves that reveal a particular stain’s “spectral fingerprint,” the authors used ImageJ, in conjunction with Paleo ToolBox, developed by Bill Christens-Barry of Equipoise Imaging.

Overall, the imaging data amounted to 327.5 GB. The TIFF files, along with their metadata and the methodological procedure, will be shared in an open access repository hosted by SIMS at UPenn Libraries. Showcase visualizations of the data associated with what we refer to as “stain stories—fragmentary narratives of a manuscript’s history based on the spectral signatures of its inks and stains—will be available through Digital Mappa software developed by Martin Foys, Department of English, University of Madison-Wisconsin. The visualizations will link the raw data from the repository and show how it can be used, following the methodology, to investigate the nature of stains on manuscripts.

The project benefited from the contributions of additional collaborators, including Fenella France, Chief Preservation Officer at the Library of Congress; Michael Toth of RB Toth and Associates; and William Christens-Barry of Equipoise Imaging, who provided the multispectral imaging equipment, as well as invaluable guidance during the imaging process and analysis at the universities of Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Wisconsin.

]]>18882CLIR Appoints Presidential Fellows Herman Pabbruwe, Elizabeth Waraksahttps://www.clir.org/2018/05/clir-appoints-presidential-fellows-herman-pabbruwe-elizabeth-waraksa/
Thu, 17 May 2018 16:03:24 +0000https://clir.wordpress.clir.org/?p=18839Washington, DC, May 17, 2018—The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) today announced the appointment of Herman Pabbruwe and Elizabeth Waraksa as Distinguished Presidential Fellows, effective June 1, 2018. Herman Pabbruwe served for 14 years as CEO of Koninklijke Brill N.V., a global academic publisher headquartered in Leiden, the Netherlands, before stepping down this week. He has been recognized for his innovation, thoughtful experimentation, and successful shepherding of a company that has thrived for more than three centuries. He recently completed a long tenure on CLIR’s board of directors, serving with distinction as treasurer and subsequently chair. The focus of his fellowship will be scholarly publishing in the humanities and social sciences in the twenty-first century. Framing his research will be the questions of what constitutes a publication in the contemporary academic environment, and the relationship between publishing format and scholarly methodology and research strategy. He will consider new models of scholarly publishing that might emerge in the next decade, and how they might challenge the organization of academic knowledge and the traditional measures of influence and reputation. “CLIR has published in a variety of formats about scholarly communication for more than 60 years and is deeply invested in this topic and its evolution,” said CLIR President Charles Henry. “The acuity Mr. Pabbruwe brings is uniquely suited to a rigorous, humanistic exploration of these fundamental issues.” Elizabeth Waraksa is program director for research and strategic initiatives at the Association of Research Libraries, where she works on projects in workforce development, scholarly communication, and innovation. Prior to joining ARL in 2015, she served as librarian for Middle Eastern Studies and lecturer in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures and the Study of Religion at UCLA. From 2007 to 2009, she was a CLIR postdoctoral fellow at the UCLA Library, where she worked on the open access UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, among other projects. She has participated in archaeological excavations in Egypt, Italy, and Israel, and published on topics ranging from Egyptian female figurines to the benefits of collaboration. Waraksa’s fellowship will focus on global digital resources, particularly those highlighting the cultural heritage of the Near and Middle East, and the opportunities that these resources offer scholars, library and information studies professionals, local and heritage communities, and all who are curious to learn more about our shared human history. She will explore how global digital collections are being leveraged in research, teaching, and learning today, and the kinds of new questions we can ask of these increasingly large and complex digital collections. She will also consider how data creators and stewards such as librarians, archivists, curators, oral historians, community leaders, developers, and others can best exchange their knowledge and expertise. “Dr. Waraksa’s contributions to the Digital Library of the Middle East have been integral to that project’s success thus far,” said Charles Henry. “Her research as a Fellow represents an extensible, encompassing exploration of her interests that should prove essential to our understanding of the design and aspirations of a global digital library.” Fellows’ terms will be two years. The Council on Library and Information Resources is an independent, nonprofit organization that forges strategies to enhance research, teaching, and learning environments in collaboration with libraries, cultural institutions, and communities of higher learning.

]]>Washington, DC, May 17, 2018—The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) today announced the appointment of Herman Pabbruwe and Elizabeth Waraksa as Distinguished Presidential Fellows, effective June 1, 2018.

Herman Pabbruwe served for 14 years as CEO of Koninklijke Brill N.V., a global academic publisher headquartered in Leiden, the Netherlands, before stepping down this week. He has been recognized for his innovation, thoughtful experimentation, and successful shepherding of a company that has thrived for more than three centuries. He recently completed a long tenure on CLIR’s board of directors, serving with distinction as treasurer and subsequently chair.

The focus of his fellowship will be scholarly publishing in the humanities and social sciences in the twenty-first century. Framing his research will be the questions of what constitutes a publication in the contemporary academic environment, and the relationship between publishing format and scholarly methodology and research strategy. He will consider new models of scholarly publishing that might emerge in the next decade, and how they might challenge the organization of academic knowledge and the traditional measures of influence and reputation.

“CLIR has published in a variety of formats about scholarly communication for more than 60 years and is deeply invested in this topic and its evolution,” said CLIR President Charles Henry. “The acuity Mr. Pabbruwe brings is uniquely suited to a rigorous, humanistic exploration of these fundamental issues.”

Elizabeth Waraksa is program director for research and strategic initiatives at the Association of Research Libraries, where she works on projects in workforce development, scholarly communication, and innovation. Prior to joining ARL in 2015, she served as librarian for Middle Eastern Studies and lecturer in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures and the Study of Religion at UCLA. From 2007 to 2009, she was a CLIR postdoctoral fellow at the UCLA Library, where she worked on the open access UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, among other projects. She has participated in archaeological excavations in Egypt, Italy, and Israel, and published on topics ranging from Egyptian female figurines to the benefits of collaboration.

Waraksa’s fellowship will focus on global digital resources, particularly those highlighting the cultural heritage of the Near and Middle East, and the opportunities that these resources offer scholars, library and information studies professionals, local and heritage communities, and all who are curious to learn more about our shared human history. She will explore how global digital collections are being leveraged in research, teaching, and learning today, and the kinds of new questions we can ask of these increasingly large and complex digital collections. She will also consider how data creators and stewards such as librarians, archivists, curators, oral historians, community leaders, developers, and others can best exchange their knowledge and expertise.

“Dr. Waraksa’s contributions to the Digital Library of the Middle East have been integral to that project’s success thus far,” said Charles Henry. “Her research as a Fellow represents an extensible, encompassing exploration of her interests that should prove essential to our understanding of the design and aspirations of a global digital library.”

Fellows’ terms will be two years.

The Council on Library and Information Resources is an independent, nonprofit organization that forges strategies to enhance research, teaching, and learning environments in collaboration with libraries, cultural institutions, and communities of higher learning.

]]>18839CLIR Awards $509,488 for Recordings at Riskhttps://www.clir.org/2018/04/clir-awards-509488-for-recordings-at-risk/
Fri, 27 Apr 2018 14:25:11 +0000https://clir.wordpress.clir.org/?p=18679Washington, DC, April 27, 2018—The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) today announced that the following 16 institutions have been awarded Recordings at Risk grants in the program’s third grant cycle. Institution: African American Museum & Library at Oakland Project: Preserving the Black Panther Party and Social Protest Films from the Henry J. Williams Jr. Film Collection Amount: $19,590 Institution: The Bancroft Library Project: Global Influence: Preserving Moving Images from Environmental Movements in the West, 1920-2000 Amount: $46,039 Institution: Barnard Archives in partnership with the Barnard Center for Research on Women Project: Preserving the Audio Recordings of The Scholar and Feminist Conference Amount: $24,349 Institution: Bryant Library Project: Everyday Voices: Preserving the Bryant Library Oral History Collection Amount: $12,728 Institution: Columbia University Libraries Project: Bob Fass Radio Broadcasts from the 1960s and 1970s Amount: $49,931 Institution: Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting (FELPB) Project: Saving French in Louisiana: Preserving LPB’s En Français Series Amount: $12,655 Institution: Franklin Furnace Project: Preserving Rare Recordings of Performance Art in the Franklin Furnace Video Collection Amount: $27,396 Institution: Iowa State University Library Project: Activist Farmers on Film: Preserving the Recordings of the National Farmers Organization Amount: $49,800 Institution: National Public Radio Project: Fuente de Diversas Voces y Perspectivas: Preserving and Providing Access to “Enfoque Nacional,” National Public Radio’s First Spanish-Language News Program Amount: $36,490 Institution: University of California, Davis Project: Red Power and Higher Education: Preserving the Audiovisual Record of the American Indian Movement for Education and Empowerment Amount: $11,340 Institution: University of North Carolina at Charlotte Project: Preserving the Harvey B. Gantt 1996 Senate Campaign Recordings Amount: $18,740 Institution: University of Oklahoma Libraries Project: Preserving Native Voices from the Airwaves: Digitizing the Indians for Indians Hour Radio Program Recordings, 1942-1976 Amount: $49,900 Institution: University of Virginia Library Project: Aluminum Instantaneous Discs from the Virginia Folklore Society, 1932-1940 Amount: $15,313 Institution: University of Washington Project: Lesbian Feminist Broadcast Tapes Amount: $39,204 Institution: Archives of Iowa Broadcasting, Wartburg College Project: Digitization of WHO Radio Discs, 1938-1961 Amount: $47,440 Institution: Wesleyan University Project: Hudson River Festivals Amount: $48,573 More detail on this year’s funded projects can be found at: https://www.clir.org/recordings-at-risk/funded-projects/. Recordings at Risk is a national regranting program that supports the preservation of rare and unique audio and audiovisual content of high scholarly value. Generously funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Recordings at Risk will award a total of $2.3 million between January 2017 and April 2019. CLIR will begin accepting applications for a new Recordings at Risk grant cycle on May 1, 2018, at http://bit.ly/CLIRRaRApp. The CLIR grants team will host an introductory webinar for potential applicants on Wednesday, May 16, 2018, at 2:00 pm Eastern Time. The Council on Library and Information Resources (www.clir.org) is an independent, nonprofit organization that forges strategies to enhance research, teaching, and learning environments in collaboration with libraries, cultural institution, and communities of higher learning.

]]>Washington, DC, April 27, 2018—The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) today announced that the following 16 institutions have been awarded Recordings at Risk grants in the program’s third grant cycle.

Institution: African American Museum & Library at OaklandProject: Preserving the Black Panther Party and Social Protest Films from the Henry J. Williams Jr. Film CollectionAmount: $19,590

Institution: Iowa State University LibraryProject: Activist Farmers on Film: Preserving the Recordings of the National Farmers OrganizationAmount: $49,800

Institution: National Public RadioProject: Fuente de Diversas Voces y Perspectivas: Preserving and Providing Access to “Enfoque Nacional,” National Public Radio’s First Spanish-Language News ProgramAmount: $36,490

Institution: University of California, DavisProject: Red Power and Higher Education: Preserving the Audiovisual Record of the American Indian Movement for Education and EmpowermentAmount: $11,340

Recordings at Risk is a national regranting program that supports the preservation of rare and unique audio and audiovisual content of high scholarly value. Generously funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Recordings at Risk will award a total of $2.3 million between January 2017 and April 2019.

The Council on Library and Information Resources (www.clir.org) is an independent, nonprofit organization that forges strategies to enhance research, teaching, and learning environments in collaboration with libraries, cultural institution, and communities of higher learning.

]]>18679CLIR Issues 122https://www.clir.org/2018/04/clir-issues-122/
Fri, 27 Apr 2018 11:46:12 +0000https://clir.wordpress.clir.org/?p=18641 Number 122 • March/April 2018 ISSN 1944-7639 (online version) Contents CLIR Awards $509,488 for Recordings at Risk New Grant Supports Next Phase of Digital Library of the Middle East Announcing DLF Forum and NDSA DigiPres Keynote Speakers Sebastian Galbo Receives 2018 Rovelstad Scholarship Forthcoming: The Future of Email Archives Final Call! Proposals for DLF Forum, Learn@DLF, DigiPres 2018 Register Now for 2018 IIIF Conference in Washington, DC 2016–2017 Annual Report Now Available CLIR Issues is produced in electronic format only. To receive the newsletter, please sign up at http://www.clir.org/pubs/issues/signup. Content is not copyrighted and can be freely distributed. Follow us on Twitter @CLIRNews, @CLIRHC, @CLIRDLF CLIR Awards $509,488 for Recordings at Risk Sixteen institutions have been selected to receive CLIR Recordings at Risk grants in the program’s third grant cycle. Recordings at Risk is a national regranting program that supports the preservation of rare and unique audio and audiovisual content of high scholarly value. Institution: African American Museum & Library at Oakland Project: Preserving the Black Panther Party and Social Protest Films from the Henry J. Williams Jr. Film Collection Amount: $19,590 Institution: The Bancroft Library Project: Global Influence: Preserving Moving Images from Environmental Movements in the West, 1920-2000 Amount: $46,039 Institution: Barnard Archives in partnership with the Barnard Center for Research on Women Project: Preserving the Audio Recordings of The Scholar and Feminist Conference Amount: $24,349 Institution: Bryant Library Project: Everyday Voices: Preserving the Bryant Library Oral History Collection Amount: $12,728 Institution: Columbia University Libraries Project: Bob Fass Radio Broadcasts from the 1960s and 1970s Amount: $49,931 Institution: Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting (FELPB) Project: Saving French in Louisiana: Preserving LPB’s En Français Series Amount: $12,655 Institution: Franklin Furnace Project: Preserving Rare Recordings of Performance Art in the Franklin Furnace Video Collection Amount: $27,396 Institution: Iowa State University Library Project: Activist Farmers on Film: Preserving the Recordings of the National Farmers Organization Amount: $49,800 Institution: National Public Radio Project: Fuente de Diversas Voces y Perspectivas: Preserving and Providing Access to “Enfoque Nacional,” National Public Radio’s First Spanish-Language News Program Amount: $36,490 Institution: University of California, Davis Project: Red Power and Higher Education: Preserving the Audiovisual Record of the American Indian Movement for Education and Empowerment Amount: $11,340 Institution: University of North Carolina at Charlotte Project: Preserving the Harvey B. Gantt 1996 Senate Campaign Recordings Amount: $18,740 Institution: University of Oklahoma Libraries Project: Preserving Native Voices from the Airwaves: Digitizing the Indians for Indians Hour Radio Program Recordings, 1942-1976 Amount: $49,900 Institution: University of Virginia Library Project: Aluminum Instantaneous Discs from the Virginia Folklore Society, 1932-1940 Amount: $15,313 Institution: University of Washington Project: Lesbian Feminist Broadcast Tapes Amount: $39,204 Institution: Archives of Iowa Broadcasting, Wartburg College Project: Digitization of WHO Radio Discs, 1938-1961 Amount: $47,440 Institution: Wesleyan University Project: Hudson River Festivals Amount: $48,573 More detail on this year’s funded projects can be found at: https://www.clir.org/recordings-at-risk/funded-projects/. Generously funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Recordings at Risk will award a total of $2.3 million between January 2017 and April 2019. CLIR will begin accepting applications for a new Recordings at Risk grant cycle on May 1, 2018, at http://bit.ly/CLIRRaRApp. The CLIR grants team will host an introductory webinar for potential applicants on Wednesday, May 16, 2018, at 2:00 pm Eastern Time. New Grant Supports Next Phase of Digital Library of the Middle East As the spectacular Qatar National Library (QNL) celebrated its grand opening last week, work continued to lay the foundations for a Digital Library of the Middle East (DLME). A $1.2 million grant to CLIR from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, announced earlier this month, supports the creation of a sustainable technical platform and set of curatorial processes to federate records relating to the cultural heritage of the Middle East. CLIR and DLF are working with technical partners at Stanford University and content providers worldwide to build on the DLME prototype released in January and create processes to extend the DLME. The DLME is envisioned as a non-proprietary, multilingual library of digital objects providing greater security for, preservation of, and access to digital surrogates of cultural heritage materials. The platform will be portable and reusable for any future digital library project, encouraging a global coherence of access to and preservation of the cultural record. The project will draw on best practices from other digital library projects to support cost-effective and reproducible curatorial workflows for identifying, selecting, and federating digital assets that represent both cultural materials under threat and objects housed in libraries and museums beyond conflict zones. While in Doha for the QNL opening, project co-PIs Charles Henry and Bethany Nowviskie, project director Peter Herdrich, and curatorial lead Elizabeth Waraksa met with leadership, technical, and curatorial staff from QNL—a key regional partner in the DLME—to offer updates on the project, solicit feedback, and agree on paths forward for the partnership. CLIR and DLF also co-hosted, with QNL, a reception for international librarians attending the grand opening, including representatives of potential and interested DLME institutional partners. The project is now seeking to hire a data manager and project coordinator based at Stanford Libraries. CLIR and Stanford expect to launch the platform in 2020. For more information on the DLME, visit https://dlme.clir.org/. Announcing DLF Forum and NDSA DigiPres Keynote Speakers Anasuya Sengupata, co-director and co-founder of Whose Knowledge?, will open the 2018 DLF Forum with a talk titled, “Decolonizing Knowledge, Decolonizing the Internet: An Agenda for Collective Action.” Sengupta has led initiatives in India and the United States, across the global South, and internationally for over 20 years, to amplify marginalized voices in virtual and physical worlds. She is the former Chief Grantmaking Officer at the Wikimedia Foundation and a Shuttleworth Fellow. Snowden Becker, lecturer and manager of the graduate degree program in audiovisual archiving and preservation in UCLA’s Department of Information Studies, will open Digital Preservation 2018 with a talk titled, “To See Ourselves as Others See Us: On Archives, Visibility, and Value.” Becker’s research interests focus on how audiovisual materials are integrated into, accessed, and preserved as part Read More

CLIR Awards $509,488 for Recordings at Risk

Sixteen institutions have been selected to receive CLIR Recordings at Risk grants in the program’s third grant cycle. Recordings at Risk is a national regranting program that supports the preservation of rare and unique audio and audiovisual content of high scholarly value.

Institution: African American Museum & Library at OaklandProject: Preserving the Black Panther Party and Social Protest Films from the Henry J. Williams Jr. Film CollectionAmount: $19,590

Institution: Iowa State University LibraryProject: Activist Farmers on Film: Preserving the Recordings of the National Farmers OrganizationAmount: $49,800

Institution: National Public RadioProject: Fuente de Diversas Voces y Perspectivas: Preserving and Providing Access to “Enfoque Nacional,” National Public Radio’s First Spanish-Language News ProgramAmount: $36,490

Institution: University of California, DavisProject: Red Power and Higher Education: Preserving the Audiovisual Record of the American Indian Movement for Education and EmpowermentAmount: $11,340

New Grant Supports Next Phase of Digital Library of the Middle East

As the spectacular Qatar National Library (QNL) celebrated its grand opening last week, work continued to lay the foundations for a Digital Library of the Middle East (DLME). A $1.2 million grant to CLIR from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, announced earlier this month, supports the creation of a sustainable technical platform and set of curatorial processes to federate records relating to the cultural heritage of the Middle East. CLIR and DLF are working with technical partners at Stanford University and content providers worldwide to build on the DLME prototype released in January and create processes to extend the DLME.

The DLME is envisioned as a non-proprietary, multilingual library of digital objects providing greater security for, preservation of, and access to digital surrogates of cultural heritage materials. The platform will be portable and reusable for any future digital library project, encouraging a global coherence of access to and preservation of the cultural record. The project will draw on best practices from other digital library projects to support cost-effective and reproducible curatorial workflows for identifying, selecting, and federating digital assets that represent both cultural materials under threat and objects housed in libraries and museums beyond conflict zones.

While in Doha for the QNL opening, project co-PIs Charles Henry and Bethany Nowviskie, project director Peter Herdrich, and curatorial lead Elizabeth Waraksa met with leadership, technical, and curatorial staff from QNL—a key regional partner in the DLME—to offer updates on the project, solicit feedback, and agree on paths forward for the partnership. CLIR and DLF also co-hosted, with QNL, a reception for international librarians attending the grand opening, including representatives of potential and interested DLME institutional partners.

Announcing DLF Forum and NDSA DigiPres Keynote Speakers

Anasuya Sengupata, co-director and co-founder of Whose Knowledge?, will open the 2018 DLF Forum with a talk titled, “Decolonizing Knowledge, Decolonizing the Internet: An Agenda for Collective Action.” Sengupta has led initiatives in India and the United States, across the global South, and internationally for over 20 years, to amplify marginalized voices in virtual and physical worlds. She is the former Chief Grantmaking Officer at the Wikimedia Foundation and a Shuttleworth Fellow.

Snowden Becker, lecturer and manager of the graduate degree program in audiovisual archiving and preservation in UCLA’s Department of Information Studies, will open Digital Preservation 2018 with a talk titled, “To See Ourselves as Others See Us: On Archives, Visibility, and Value.” Becker’s research interests focus on how audiovisual materials are integrated into, accessed, and preserved as part of our larger cultural heritage.

To stay informed of DLF Forum news, sign up for the low-traffic newsletter.

Sebastian Galbo Receives 2018 Rovelstad Scholarship

Sebastian Galbo, a master’s student in library and information science at SUNY Buffalo where he is concentrating on international librarianship and digital archives, was selected to receive this year’s Rovelstad Scholarship in International Librarianship. After earning a bachelor’s degree in English and philosophy from Niagara University, Galbo received a master’s in liberal studies from Dartmouth College. Currently, he serves as co-editor for the NYU School of Medicine’s Literature, Arts and Medicine Database (LitMed).

“Today, the critical importance of international librarianship is emphasizing that libraries, no matter their location, cannot thrive as isolated enterprises, but as integrated community assets whose success has far-reaching social implications,” said Galbo. “Through collaborative solidarity, libraries around the world can therefore continue to contribute to building sustainable communities that offer equitable, reliable, and safe access to information.”

The Rovelstad Scholarship provides travel funds for a student of library and information science to attend the annual meeting of the World Library and Information Congress, which takes place this year in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, August 24-30.

Forthcoming: The Future of Email Archives

This summer, CLIR will publish The Future of Email Archives: A Report from the Task Force on Technical Approaches to Email Archives. The charge of the task force, formed in November 2016 by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Digital Preservation Coalition, was to construct a working agenda for the community. The report articulates a conceptual and technical framework for email archiving, suggests how existing tools fit within the framework, and begins to identify next steps.

The Forum will be held Oct. 15–17, just outside Las Vegas. Preceding the Forum on Oct. 14 will be the first-ever Learn@DLF, a day for learning through workshops. The National Digital Stewardship Alliance’s annual conference, Digital Preservation 2018, will follow the Forum on Oct. 17-18.

IIIF provides an open framework for organizations to publish their image-based resources, to be viewed, cited, annotated, and compared by any compatible image-viewing application. Staff from cultural heritage and STEM institutions will benefit from the conference, as will repository and collection managers, software engineers, or anyone engaged with image-based resources on the Web. (IIIF will also soon support interoperability for audiovisual materials.)

Conference attendees will learn how to adopt IIIF at their institutions and how to leverage open source software to get more out of their image and video collections, hear use cases and best practices from IIIF adopters, and see the latest developments in the community including IIIF A/V.

2016-2017 Annual Report Now Available

See highlights from CLIR’s fiscal year July 1, 2016–June 30, 2017 in our just-released annual report.

]]>18641Compassion at Scale: Qatar National Libraryhttps://www.clir.org/2018/04/compassion-at-scale-qatar-national-library/
Wed, 25 Apr 2018 16:17:36 +0000https://clir.wordpress.clir.org/?p=18653By Charles Henry The brilliant, thin edges of laser light played against the desert sky, creating flickering silhouettes of our destination that evening. It was April 16, the grand opening of the Qatar National Library (QNL) in Doha. The “red carpet” leading to the main entrance was a slightly elevated LED screen flashing images of the library and artifacts of Qatar’s cultural heritage. Signs in Arabic and English declared Qatar to be “a nation guided by knowledge,” signaling the transition from Qatar’s former reliance on natural earth resources to a new era anchored by scientific and humanistic research and understanding. This theme of transition was pervasive. Earlier this century, Sheihka Moza bint Nasser, chairperson of the Qatar Foundation and a guiding spirit of the re-imagining of Qatar, developed the idea for the QNL as a transformative catalyst for new discovery to augment human capacity and our ability to address the tangled challenges we face today. There is something intriguingly audacious about investing so significantly in a physical library in an age that is invariably described as digital, but then the QNL easily balances and elegantly encompasses all manner of contradiction. Its stone, steel, and wood surfaces frame the glass windows that angle upward sharply, presenting a dramatic interior that appears to soar, with a wide, open atrium surrounded by terraced bookshelves on all sides, making visible each bound copy of the library’s holdings. The architect, Rem Koolhaas, told the audience that the building’s shape came to him when imagining a folded piece of paper that had a few slots on each edge that his eye could peer into. The slots became some of the higher placed windows, while the peaks of the folds transformed into grand triangles of glass. Architecture, he declared, has always meant to heal and resolve tensions; a building of judiciously combined solid materials based on a sheet of folded paper was, in his imagination, satisfyingly logical. The resources of the QNL are similarly balanced. The print book collections number more than 800,000 volumes and are continually growing, with another 500,000 books available electronically. The Heritage Collection, a treasure trove of rare books and manuscripts, including a beautiful folio from the Blue Qur’an, is housed in the lower level of the library. It is visible from the main floor as a series of deep, paved aisles between stone blocks that display the special materials in glass cases set into the stone. The effect is of a mesmerizing, unearthed archeological site that coveys the mystery and power of our cultural heritage. So fluid are the conceptual boundaries of the QNL that, upon reflection, it possesses a motion that transcends its shimmering mass and local habitation. Any great national library, as was described in the opening ceremonies, is both aligned with its country of origin and with the world at large—inherently an international library. Representatives of 52 countries attended the opening, including the heads of many other national libraries, inaugurating a conversation across nations and continents that will explore collaborative efforts and collective interests. A global library of national libraries was mentioned several times. Current technology exists for such a marvelous project, and this will be a priority for CLIR in the next five years, working with all who gathered in Doha and reaching beyond to other collections of tacit, indigenous, and fragile culture: many distinct, integral, and impassioned voices, one world. Seated on a book terrace while studying my notes for a panel discussion on fake news the week of the QNL opening, it was the brisk slap of small sandals against the stone floor that, like an ancient chant, awakened me to the fuller promise of the Qatar National Library. Children running freely in the open spaces, with their parents often scurrying to catch them, was emblematic of the future. The QNL is constructed to span and embrace generations; young people playing in the filtered sunlight will become the researchers and leaders of generations to follow. The freedom and cadence of those small movements will in turn, we trust, invigorate and frame the progress of our singular planet. My fellow panelists that evening shared concern for an evident paradox: in an era of unprecedented information access and knowledge proximity we are confronted with distortions of the truth, surreptitious manipulations of the processes core to democracy, surveillance of staggering intimacy, and the commodifying of our interests and affections for resale. The technologies purporting to unite the world and connect us with benign, even comforting affiliation segregate us into divisive tribes, abetting confrontations through fake news that can risk mortal conflict. We agreed that these circumstances require a new form of literacy: not just an ability to read, but responsibility for rigorous scrutiny and analysis of words, images, statistics, provenance, and intent of the information that we encounter. Such intensive education and mentoring requisite for this new literacy, with the provision of resources to abet a more enlightened awareness of the amorphous, muddled environment that can ingeniously conceal truth and reality: these are the vital services of the 21st century public library. The QNL, through its vision and mission, is dedicated to and exemplary of these goals. Welcome the children’s footfalls in our midst, I thought; tomorrow in this library, with ceremonial flags packed and reception tables trundled, the work begins to more quietly instill a sense of wonder and respect for the complexity of our nature and what we can effect; acknowledging the coarse, shrill manipulations of our lesser instincts may inspire the more difficult, and benevolent, achievements of a shared humanity.

The brilliant, thin edges of laser light played against the desert sky, creating flickering silhouettes of our destination that evening. It was April 16, the grand opening of the Qatar National Library (QNL) in Doha. The “red carpet” leading to the main entrance was a slightly elevated LED screen flashing images of the library and artifacts of Qatar’s cultural heritage. Signs in Arabic and English declared Qatar to be “a nation guided by knowledge,” signaling the transition from Qatar’s former reliance on natural earth resources to a new era anchored by scientific and humanistic research and understanding.

This theme of transition was pervasive. Earlier this century, Sheihka Moza bint Nasser, chairperson of the Qatar Foundation and a guiding spirit of the re-imagining of Qatar, developed the idea for the QNL as a transformative catalyst for new discovery to augment human capacity and our ability to address the tangled challenges we face today. There is something intriguingly audacious about investing so significantly in a physical library in an age that is invariably described as digital, but then the QNL easily balances and elegantly encompasses all manner of contradiction.

Its stone, steel, and wood surfaces frame the glass windows that angle upward sharply, presenting a dramatic interior that appears to soar, with a wide, open atrium surrounded by terraced bookshelves on all sides, making visible each bound copy of the library’s holdings. The architect, Rem Koolhaas, told the audience that the building’s shape came to him when imagining a folded piece of paper that had a few slots on each edge that his eye could peer into. The slots became some of the higher placed windows, while the peaks of the folds transformed into grand triangles of glass. Architecture, he declared, has always meant to heal and resolve tensions; a building of judiciously combined solid materials based on a sheet of folded paper was, in his imagination, satisfyingly logical.

The resources of the QNL are similarly balanced. The print book collections number more than 800,000 volumes and are continually growing, with another 500,000 books available electronically. The Heritage Collection, a treasure trove of rare books and manuscripts, including a beautiful folio from the Blue Qur’an, is housed in the lower level of the library. It is visible from the main floor as a series of deep, paved aisles between stone blocks that display the special materials in glass cases set into the stone. The effect is of a mesmerizing, unearthed archeological site that coveys the mystery and power of our cultural heritage.

So fluid are the conceptual boundaries of the QNL that, upon reflection, it possesses a motion that transcends its shimmering mass and local habitation. Any great national library, as was described in the opening ceremonies, is both aligned with its country of origin and with the world at large—inherently an international library. Representatives of 52 countries attended the opening, including the heads of many other national libraries, inaugurating a conversation across nations and continents that will explore collaborative efforts and collective interests. A global library of national libraries was mentioned several times. Current technology exists for such a marvelous project, and this will be a priority for CLIR in the next five years, working with all who gathered in Doha and reaching beyond to other collections of tacit, indigenous, and fragile culture: many distinct, integral, and impassioned voices, one world.

Seated on a book terrace while studying my notes for a panel discussion on fake news the week of the QNL opening, it was the brisk slap of small sandals against the stone floor that, like an ancient chant, awakened me to the fuller promise of the Qatar National Library. Children running freely in the open spaces, with their parents often scurrying to catch them, was emblematic of the future. The QNL is constructed to span and embrace generations; young people playing in the filtered sunlight will become the researchers and leaders of generations to follow. The freedom and cadence of those small movements will in turn, we trust, invigorate and frame the progress of our singular planet.

My fellow panelists that evening shared concern for an evident paradox: in an era of unprecedented information access and knowledge proximity we are confronted with distortions of the truth, surreptitious manipulations of the processes core to democracy, surveillance of staggering intimacy, and the commodifying of our interests and affections for resale. The technologies purporting to unite the world and connect us with benign, even comforting affiliation segregate us into divisive tribes, abetting confrontations through fake news that can risk mortal conflict.

We agreed that these circumstances require a new form of literacy: not just an ability to read, but responsibility for rigorous scrutiny and analysis of words, images, statistics, provenance, and intent of the information that we encounter. Such intensive education and mentoring requisite for this new literacy, with the provision of resources to abet a more enlightened awareness of the amorphous, muddled environment that can ingeniously conceal truth and reality: these are the vital services of the 21st century public library. The QNL, through its vision and mission, is dedicated to and exemplary of these goals.

Welcome the children’s footfalls in our midst, I thought; tomorrow in this library, with ceremonial flags packed and reception tables trundled, the work begins to more quietly instill a sense of wonder and respect for the complexity of our nature and what we can effect; acknowledging the coarse, shrill manipulations of our lesser instincts may inspire the more difficult, and benevolent, achievements of a shared humanity.

]]>18653CLIR Names 2018 Mellon Dissertation Fellowshttps://www.clir.org/2018/04/clir-names-2018-mellon-dissertation-fellows/
Thu, 05 Apr 2018 15:19:20 +0000https://clir.wordpress.clir.org/?p=18599Washington, DC, April 5, 2018—Fifteen graduate students have been selected to receive awards this year under the Mellon Fellowships for Dissertation Research in Original Sources program, which CLIR administers. The fellowships are intended to help graduate students in the humanities and related social science fields pursue research wherever relevant sources are available; gain skill and creativity in using primary source materials in libraries, archives, museums, and related repositories; and provide suggestions to CLIR about how such source materials can be made more accessible and useful. The fellowships carry stipends of up to $25,000 each to support dissertation research for periods ranging from nine to twelve months. Jessica Bachman Books Across Borders: Science, Cold War Culture, and Soviet Book Reading in Postcolonial India, 1954-1991 University of Washington Carly Boxer It owiþ to be lokid: The Visual Culture of English Medicine, 1348-1450 University of Chicago Susan Eberhard Marks of Exchange: American Silver, Chinese Silverwares and the Global Circulation of Value University of California at Berkeley Idriss Fofana The “Chinese Solution” to the Labor Question in Africa: A Legal History of Chinese Labor Migration to the Congo Free State, 1860-1911 Columbia University Qian He Spectacular Antagonism: Class Struggle, Exposure, and Cinema as Show Trial in China, 1925-1985 University of Washington Zhuqing Hu Music and Qing Imperial Formations (c. 1680-1820): Negotiating Historiography and Ethnography in Global Music History University of Chicago Karin Mei Li Inouye Performing Jiang Qing (1914-1991): Gender Politics in Modern Chinese Visual Culture, Film, Theater, and Literature Stanford University Adrienn Kacsor Migrant Communism: Hungarian Artists in the Service of Soviet Internationalism, 1919-1956 Northwestern University Mallory Matsumoto Sharing Script: The Transmission of Scribal Practice Among the Classic Maya Brown University Ania Nikulina Ukrainian Ballet: a Site of Conflict between Neo-Imperialism and Post-Soviet Nationalism University of California, Riverside Eilin Perez The Half-Life of Sovereignty: North Korea and Solidarity Movements of the Global South, 1960- 1989 University of Chicago Ekaterina Pukhovaia State-building in Early Modern Zaydi Yemen (15th–early 17th century) Princeton University Andrea Rosengarten Resistance and Racial Fluidity in Colonial Namibia: The Case of Nama Ethnogenesis, c. 1820-1985 Northwestern University Andrew Starling “Theological Quarrels and Wars of the Pen”: Jansenism, the Rise of Mass Media, and the Fall of the Old Regime University of Pennsylvania Antony Wood The Problem of the Nation in an Age of Revolution: Transnational Radical Debates on Sovereignty, Race, and Class in Latin America, 1923–1934 New York University

The fellowships are intended to help graduate students in the humanities and related social science fields pursue research wherever relevant sources are available; gain skill and creativity in using primary source materials in libraries, archives, museums, and related repositories; and provide suggestions to CLIR about how such source materials can be made more accessible and useful.

The fellowships carry stipends of up to $25,000 each to support dissertation research for periods ranging from nine to twelve months.

Jessica BachmanBooks Across Borders: Science, Cold War Culture, and Soviet Book Reading in Postcolonial India, 1954-1991University of Washington

Carly BoxerIt owiþ to be lokid: The Visual Culture of English Medicine, 1348-1450
University of Chicago

Susan EberhardMarks of Exchange: American Silver, Chinese Silverwares and the Global Circulation of ValueUniversity of California at Berkeley

Idriss FofanaThe “Chinese Solution” to the Labor Question in Africa: A Legal History of Chinese Labor Migration to the Congo Free State, 1860-1911
Columbia University

Qian HeSpectacular Antagonism: Class Struggle, Exposure, and Cinema as Show Trial in China, 1925-1985
University of Washington

Zhuqing HuMusic and Qing Imperial Formations (c. 1680-1820): Negotiating Historiography and Ethnography in Global Music History
University of Chicago

]]>18599CLIR Receives $1.12 Million to Implement Platform and Processes for Digital Library of the Middle Easthttps://www.clir.org/2018/04/clir-receives-1-12-million-to-implement-platform-and-processes-for-digital-library-of-the-middle-east/
Tue, 03 Apr 2018 15:22:50 +0000https://clir.wordpress.clir.org/?p=18574Washington, DC, April 3, 2018—The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) $1.12 million to implement a sustainable, extensible digital library platform and set of curatorial processes to federate records relating to the cultural heritage of the Middle East. CLIR and its Digital Library Federation (DLF) program will work with technical partners at Stanford University and content providers worldwide to build on the Digital Library of the Middle East (DLME) prototype and create processes to extend the DLME. The DLME is envisioned as a non-proprietary, multilingual library of digital objects providing greater security for, preservation of, and access to digital surrogates of cultural heritage materials. “This critically important grant allows us to build and refine an exemplary global, federated digital library; to establish a secure, virtual environment for the preservation, access, and reuse of often-threatened elements of our cultural legacy; and to engage communities of effort and practice for the long-term sustainability of this and related projects,” said CLIR President and project co-PI Charles Henry. The platform will be portable and reusable for any future digital library project, encouraging a global coherence of access to and preservation of the cultural record. The project team, led by DLME Project Director Peter Herdrich, Curatorial Lead Elizabeth Waraksa, and a data manager/project coordinator based at Stanford Libraries, will draw on best practices from other digital library projects to support cost-effective and reproducible curatorial workflows for identifying, selecting, and federating digital assets that represent both cultural materials under threat and objects housed in libraries and museums beyond conflict zones. “We’re honored and humbled at the opportunity to undertake this project in service to the people whose history will be accessible and cross-searchable through the DLME,” said DLF Executive Director and co-PI Bethany Nowviskie. “A major focus of the work will be on respectful representation and close partnership with scholars, communities, and content stewards.” “This generous support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will enable CLIR/DLF and its international partners to build platforms and processes that will facilitate rich scholarship on and in the region for years to come,” said CLIR Board Chair Kathleen Fitzpatrick. The project builds on experience gained in developing the DLME prototype, announced in January, which was supported with funding from the Whiting Foundation, and on regional partnership building and exploration of governance models in an earlier planning phase supported by Mellon. Among CLIR’s key collaborators are the Qatar National Library and the Antiquities Coalition. CLIR and Stanford expect to launch the platform in 2020. For more information on the DLME, visit https://dlme.clir.org/. The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) is an independent, nonprofit organization that forges strategies to enhance research, teaching, and learning environments in collaboration with libraries, cultural institutions, and communities of higher learning. CLIR promotes forward-looking collaborative solutions that transcend disciplinary, institutional, professional, and geographic boundaries in support of the public good. Among CLIR’s programs and a core DLME contributor is the Digital Library Federation, an international network of member institutions and robust community of practice advancing research, learning, social justice, and the public good through the creative design and wise application of digital library technologies. Image: Belt ornament in the form of a bird demon. Urartian, ca late 8th-7th century BC. Gift of Norbert Schimmel Trust, 1989. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

]]>Washington, DC, April 3, 2018—The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) $1.12 million to implement a sustainable, extensible digital library platform and set of curatorial processes to federate records relating to the cultural heritage of the Middle East.

CLIR and its Digital Library Federation (DLF) program will work with technical partners at Stanford University and content providers worldwide to build on the Digital Library of the Middle East (DLME) prototype and create processes to extend the DLME. The DLME is envisioned as a non-proprietary, multilingual library of digital objects providing greater security for, preservation of, and access to digital surrogates of cultural heritage materials.

“This critically important grant allows us to build and refine an exemplary global, federated digital library; to establish a secure, virtual environment for the preservation, access, and reuse of often-threatened elements of our cultural legacy; and to engage communities of effort and practice for the long-term sustainability of this and related projects,” said CLIR President and project co-PI Charles Henry.

The platform will be portable and reusable for any future digital library project, encouraging a global coherence of access to and preservation of the cultural record. The project team, led by DLME Project Director Peter Herdrich, Curatorial Lead Elizabeth Waraksa, and a data manager/project coordinator based at Stanford Libraries, will draw on best practices from other digital library projects to support cost-effective and reproducible curatorial workflows for identifying, selecting, and federating digital assets that represent both cultural materials under threat and objects housed in libraries and museums beyond conflict zones.

“We’re honored and humbled at the opportunity to undertake this project in service to the people whose history will be accessible and cross-searchable through the DLME,” said DLF Executive Director and co-PI Bethany Nowviskie. “A major focus of the work will be on respectful representation and close partnership with scholars, communities, and content stewards.”

“This generous support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will enable CLIR/DLF and its international partners to build platforms and processes that will facilitate rich scholarship on and in the region for years to come,” said CLIR Board Chair Kathleen Fitzpatrick.

The project builds on experience gained in developing the DLME prototype, announced in January, which was supported with funding from the Whiting Foundation, and on regional partnership building and exploration of governance models in an earlier planning phase supported by Mellon. Among CLIR’s key collaborators are the Qatar National Library and the Antiquities Coalition.

The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) is an independent, nonprofit organization that forges strategies to enhance research, teaching, and learning environments in collaboration with libraries, cultural institutions, and communities of higher learning. CLIR promotes forward-looking collaborative solutions that transcend disciplinary, institutional, professional, and geographic boundaries in support of the public good. Among CLIR’s programs and a core DLME contributor is the Digital Library Federation, an international network of member institutions and robust community of practice advancing research, learning, social justice, and the public good through the creative design and wise application of digital library technologies.

Image: Belt ornament in the form of a bird demon. Urartian, ca late 8th-7th century BC. Gift of Norbert Schimmel Trust, 1989. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

]]>Washington, DC, March 7, 2018—Forty individuals have been selected for participation in the 2018 Leading Change Institute. The Institute, sponsored by CLIR and EDUCAUSE, will be held June 3-8, in Washington, DC.